BIO

I write poetry, essays, literary criticism, and book reviews, and am the publisher at Unbound Edition Press. No, I do not publish my own work and I never will. My poetry collection, Fort Lonesome, is with other publishers now, and I am hoping good news comes my way soon. I have the honor of being a lifetime voting member of the National Book Critics Circle. 

My recent work has been featured or is forthcoming in Kenyon Review, Harvard Review, Rain Taxi Review of Books, Salamander, Gertrude, Great River Review, Loveland Quarterly, Provincetown Arts, and The Tunnel at 25. I occasionally research and write on more scholarly literary questions.. 

I like difficult books, complex ideas, unexpected forms and virtuosic performances on the page. Language thrills me to no end. Gardens and animals bring me peace and joy; I mostly eat from one and not the other, but I write about both frequently. My writing tends toward a naturalistic Queer Southern Gothic, if that's such a thing.
 

Earlier in life, I developed and ghosted five books for major publishing houses. They were not difficult books filled with complex ideas or unexpected forms. There was nothing virtuosic about them. I did not like them. 

I misused and prostituted my talent for a good while, and previously worked as a consultant to major print and digital publishers and media companies, among others. It largely showed me what not to do in life and what to avoid when starting my independent literary press. 

Once, under the generous mentorship of William H. Gass, I spent eight years doing graduate research in American literature at Washington University in St. Louis. My undergraduate education was at Stetson University. 

 I am a happy gay man, married to another happy gay man. His name is Eric and our bulldog is Puck, successor to Ox; we live between Atlanta and Provincetown. Our family and closest friends keep me focused on being the best human I can be. I remain highly imperfect yet hopeful, thanks to their faith in me. Writing helps me get where I am trying to go, which is to some point of clarity on a host of moral questions, past traumas, and natural phenomena. These are all related in my experience of life. What I might figure out along the way could end up in a poem or an essay, or as a discarded draft.

The LGBTQ+ community is mine; I stand up and fight for it because I love it. I often focus on LGBTQ+ authors in my publishing and editorial decisions so our voices are heard and shared a little bit more. The literary community is where I am most at home, and I will fight for it, too. Because I love it through and beyond words. Writing -- the literary arts -- matters more than ever as worldwide threats to free expression grow. If you care about this issue too, please consider supporting PEN America.

Books have saved my life more than once. I now dedicate myself to writing them and publishing thoughtfully challenging work by other writers. This is both penance and reward, balanced. I have things to make up for, and the best I can do is to create beautiful and meaningful books, one way or another. 

I believe it deeply matters that people tell their truth, even if -- especially when! -- it is through fiction, poetry, prose or some form yet to be named. 

This one sentence changed my life forever. I remember the exact moment I read it and the transformation it started in me. It still inspires me to take sentences seriously and to make mine better, one word and turn at the time.

"It's true, there are moments -- foolish moments, ecstasy on a tree stump -- when I'm all but gone, scattered I like to think like seed, for I'm the sort now in the fool's position of having love left over which I'd like to lose; what good is it now to me, candy ungiven after Halloween?"

-- William H. Gass, In the Heart of the Heart of the Country